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THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



wild species have never been brought 

 under cultivation or turned to human 

 use. Cotton also occurs on oceanic is- 

 lands, such as the Galapagos, which 

 were entirely uninhabited until modern 

 times. But it is important to note that 

 the modern cotton of commerce is es- 

 sentially that of the American Indi- 

 ans. 



Both the gourd and the cotton are 

 enabled by nature to take the widest 

 advantage of distribution Ijy wind 

 and water, and we may l)e permitted to 

 assume that they passed in such fash- 

 ion from the Old World to the New. 

 The coconut, which was doubtless 

 known in the Old World before the 

 discovery of America, may have been 

 distributed by ocean currents. N"early 

 all the related palms are indigenous to 

 tropical America, but there is no cer- 

 tain evidence that the coconut itself 

 actually existed under cultivation, or 

 even in a wild state, in pre-Columbian 

 America. No remains of the fruit and 

 no pictures of the tree are found in 

 archa?ological collections, and native 

 names for the coconut are conspicu- 

 ously absent among Indian tribes. 



The earliest references to maize in 

 China are considerably subsequent to 

 the discovery and conquest of America, 

 and while the evidence points to Tibet 

 as the region from which maize entered 

 China, we must remember that the 

 caravan trade between the Near and 

 the Far East was at its height in 1 500. 

 Moreover, the world empire of Spain 

 embraced large sections of the East 

 Indies as well as of the West Indies 

 and the mainland of America. It was 

 an age that throbbed with energy, when 

 new ideas were eagerly seized upon. 

 The exchange of occidental and orien- 

 tal food plants is seen not only in the 

 introduction of maize and sweet pota- 

 toes into China, but also in the intro- 



duction of the banana and sugar-cane 

 into America. 



The map given herewith shows the 

 limits of pottery distribution and, 

 within these limits, the areas known to 

 have been given over to agriculture. 

 A rough distinction is made between 

 three general types of agriculture. The 

 first, and apparently oldest, type oc- 

 curs in open and rather arid territory 

 of considerable elevation, where irriga- 

 tion is usually necessai-y- The second 

 type is found in the humid, tropical 

 lowlands where the land must ordinar- 

 ily be cleared of the forest before plant- 

 ing can be done. The third type oc- 

 curs under temperate conditions in 

 partly open and partly forested coun- 

 try where irrigation is not required. 

 The arid highland area extends from 

 southern Colorado and Utah to south- 

 ern Chile. An outlying area is also 

 drawn across the Guiana highlands, 

 but this is somewhat doubtful and 

 ])roof of its existence must await fu- 

 ture exploration. As we have already 

 seen, agriculture seems to have spread 

 over most of this open country on the 

 first wave. 



The second type of agriculture is 

 that developed to meet the conditions 

 of the humid and heavily forested 

 tropics. The ]\Iaya civilization, prob- 

 ably the most brilliant of the New 

 World, was made possible by the agri- 

 cultural conquest of the rich lowlands 

 of Central America. On the highlands 

 the preparation of the soil is compara- 

 tively easy, owing to scanty vegetation 

 and a control vested in irrigation. On 

 the lowlands, however, great trees have 

 to be felled and fast-growing bushes 

 kept down by untiring energy. But 

 when nature is truly tamed, she re- 

 turns recompense manifold to the dar- 

 ing farmers. Moreover, there is reason 

 to believe that the removal of the for- 



